


the space between stars

by soliloquium



Category: The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Romance, SOA - Freeform, achilles is gay and doesnt want to admit it, but set in the same setting, dramaaaaaa in the second chapter, inferential homophobia ? perhaps, they're really really bad at this, weird formatting which was MEANT to add to the stylized structure, whats slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 09:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18340832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soliloquium/pseuds/soliloquium
Summary: His fingers itch to reach out for something forever out of his grasp. // A sliver of solace in between the bloodshed. Achilles is Greek. Patroclus is Trojan. What happens next might not be okay.





	the space between stars

**Author's Note:**

> I tried this long-winded, pseudo-subtle way of writing and have epic-ly failed. Comments are much appreciated. Happy reading!

When it begins, Achilles immediately falls in love with the sound of clashing metal, sweat and the sand grating itself on his skin with every movement- and everything was movement on this dusty plane between Troy and their sea.

It's a chorus of broken bones, a concert of dying wails but all Achilles can hear is the muses distantly calling forth his triumph, the adrenaline in his veins as thick and as real as blood. 

He strikes another man down, as deft and elegant as the wind. In this moment, he feels like a god.

Oh, Prometheus-  
 

* * *

He meets the love of his afterwards, in a quiet place behind a deceptive wall of trees where he goes after the noises of celebrations and triumph get to be too much. The leafy cacophony overhead and the barrier of plans differentiates them from the rest of the world.  
  
It’s not love at first sight. It’s not electricity or Greek fire, exploding. It’s not like how Achilles expected it to be; quaint and mundane.   
  
It’s him accidentally tripping over Achilles in a mad rush to capture a cat. Toppling over together. The feeling of skin on skin isn’t profound, it doesn’t steal Achilles's heart away.   
  
But he doesn’t look at Achilles like Achilles is a god. 

Or a trophy. 

Or a monster. 

Instead there are brown pools laced with worry and slight irritation and Achillies has never had anyone express consternation towards him. 

He checks Achilles’ over, fusing with the idea of bandages even when there’s nothing but the imprint of dirt and grass on his knees. 

Achilles let’s him though, watches his clumsy movements with more curiosity than he’s ever felt in a while. He touches the boy’s cheek in an absent gesture and the way the boy flinches back surprises Achilles.   
  
“What’s your name?” He asks, fingers itching to reach out again. 

He watches as brows knit. Tense, defensive shoulders. Written conflict on his face on the security of strangers and other things Achilles has never worried about. 

His mouth opens. 

* * *

Late at night, when the only thing that really exists are the wispy navy blue shadows twisting around with every motion and the sound of restless sleeping men, he tastes it in his mouth. 

“Pat-ro-cu-laus.” 

* * *

 

The next day is the same; all blood shed and glory. He doesn’t notice the skeletons piling up, only the cheers from behind from the men he is leading.

I will never tire of this, he thinks to himself. 

* * *

This time there is no bumbling meeting. He spies him caressing the leaves of a certain plant, cataloging it’s colour and scent and filing it away with further use. It’s so natural, the way his fingers dance across the vines, like he knows them. Like it’s a conversation between him and the shrubbery. 

Like Achilles is an intruder. 

He makes a noise, gently, with his feet, so it doesn’t look purposeful. 

Patroclus doesn’t turn, “I thought I’d find you here again. Shame my secret spot isn’t so secret anymore. Here, to make up for yesterday. Catch.”  
  
And Achilles does, his brain drawn taunt like a bowstring, in awe of how Patroclus addresses him, in the newness of suddenly being mundane.   
  
He doesn’t notice that there’s now a fig in his hand.

* * *

 Ivory palaces and marble walls and gold and women, Agamemnon promises them and there is the roar of agreement from the crowd. A man throwing a match into a pile of eager, gasoline men. Ready to die in the field for their flamethrower dreams. 

 Achilles’ leans against a tent pole, half watching, silent contemplation. 

 His thoughts are of figs and of soft brown hair.  

* * *

“Your mind is somewhere else,” his mother hisses, oozing displeasure like a bad smell, “you must think only of glory.”

His mother had once been a tiptoeing earthquake, a domineering presence. Achilles didn’t fear, never fear but he’d look away most days, towards the encroaching sea crests and let his hands sift through the fine golden sand as he listened. 

Now he he stares at her, full on,  but his blue eyes are pale, an echo of whisky sky, a half smile on his face. 

“Only glory,” he promises.   
 

* * *

 Achilles is still in love with the battleground. His body twists in an attack. A performance, a dance of violence  

This is his stage. This is his audience. And it will remain, forever more. 

* * *

  
They drink to victory- that’s what Agamemnon calls it. But the walls still seem  as impossibly far away as they had been on the first night, the bloodshed as two sided. Achilles, however, notes none of these things and is content to sip from his golden chalice in the harsh glow of the fires at night. 

There are hands on his back. Patting. The same garnishing of compliments. A mumble of bitter words here and there that he doesn’t care enough to inspect with his alcohol soaked brain. 

“So are the rumors true? Have you really never” a nudge, “you know.”

Achilles doesn’t know the name of questioner, all of them blend into his back round; nameless, generic faces that do nothing more but ease the story along. 

“Have I never what?” He feels almost irritation, almost a drunken swell of annoyance. 

“With a woman,” the man leers and the others lean in to listen. Several of them. All of them, it seems to Achilles, to ridicule. To do something that isn’t unadulterated admiration. 

Achilles’ wracks his brain, tries to focus on idea of the curve of a hip, a breast, a cheek. But instead the smooth pectoral and long, tan arms comes to mind. 

Achilles sips from his golden chalice and does not answer. 

* * *

 They speak properly this time. Achillies spills stories forth from his lips, leaving out blanks like the words ‘Phithia’ and ‘Prince’. 

He tells Patroclus of how he’d catch fish with his bare hands, how the water where he came was a sky blue, glass like in its clarity, how it’d make cold blossom on your skin but how you’d stay anyways. Content to drift.   
  
Patroclus tells him about the land, the animals, the plants, his voice catching on in enthusiasm as the sun traces the sky further. He puts a centimeter long caterpillar in Achilles’ hand and the fragility of it all is almost painful.   

He notes the way Patroclus smiles, the curl of a mouth, the way his fingers are always moving, grappling with some inanimate object, the curve of his head as he learnt against the tree bark. Translating them all into precious photographs for his brain. 

“So you cone from a fisherman’s family?” Patroclus asks casually, a footnote to part of their conversation, and Achillies never says yes. 

But he never says no either.   
 

* * *

The camp kills him with monotony.   
  
“They’re all human, you know,” odyssey is points out when he sees the way Achilles looks into the distance with almost-disdain, “with stories and wives and children. They had lives before coming here and turning into soldiers, details that make up an individual. You may lead some of them to their graves, it’s the least you can do.”  
  
but Achilles’ brain only catches on certain words and he realizes that Patroclus’ story is still a question mark instead of a narrative.  

* * *

“Tell me.”  
  
A breathy whisper.   
  
”About what?”  
  
Redundant heart beat.   
  
”Everything.”  
  
His fingers itch to reach out for something out of his grasp. 

* * *

The men are restless and so Agamemnon lets them have easy prey. A village or two; plundered. Fresh food taken, gold, clothes.

Women. 

Several are paraded before him like an offering. Like an animal sacrifice. Like they aren’t girls with names and stories and burnt down home and crying faces. 

Achilles takes as many as he can to his camp. He looks at all of them for a moment, tries to find how his insides would turn to lust and want and the the desire to take like the men spoke of in their myths. But all he can see is broken women. 

So he tells them to go to sleep. And watches the icy moon, silent contemplation. Thinking of figs and of soft brown hair.  

* * *

Achilles wonders how long he can stare at the golden frame until he misses the actual painting.   
  
Loneliness is such an alien feeling. It feels almost wrong in this camp with a thousand soft snores, owls cooing and crickets chirping in the distance. Achillies spies the eerily awake moon between the flaps of his tent, wonders if Patroclus is staring too.   
  
His fingers are trailing donwn his thigh. A shuddering breath. Shiver. Reaching in between his legs.   
  
His thoughts are of figs and of soft oft brown hair.  

* * *

  
Achillies stares down the battlefield with a frown that feels misplaced.   
  
He raises his sword in something that tastes almost almost like reluctance.   
 

* * *

“I hate them,” Patroclus tells him one day, as the sunsets across the coast, bathing him in a wonderfully golden glow. 

This is what gods must look like, Achillies thinks, even though his heart is a clenched fist at how Patroclus’ voice shakes. 

He doesn’t realize the object of the aggression, feels a sudden rise of protectiveness, of something more than sympathy. 

But then Patroclus explains. 

“The Greeks,” the way he speaks is a shiver of unsaid loathing, “they didn’t need to come here- none of them care about Helen- this is all a farce. A polite excuse to start a siege-“

And it dawns on Achillies. Like finding religion. That Patroclus is Trojan. 

The sunsets but neither of them move. Instead the darkness covers them like a blanket, promising comfort and secrecy. They lay on the sand, a lonely part of the beach. The Trojans and the Greeks are far away, on the other side of the world. 

Patroclus points above, his voice caught up in wonder and wanderlust, “it’s beautiful.”

The sky is a burst of stars, distant fusion gasses, ethereal and omnipotent and so so blessedly far away from the useless violence. 

“It’s the gods,” Achillies says in a murmur, his mind not traveling to his mother. 

“I wonder if we could ever build a ladder high enough to reach there,” desperate optimism. Achillies has never thought of the skeletons, “maybe- maybe if we all stopped fighting and started working together- maybe then we'd actually manage to reach the stars.”

Between them is a great divide. A sandy hill that dares not to be crossed. 

But the night keeps its secrets. And Achilles’ hand can’t help but want to cross, to lace his fingers through Patroclus’ roughened ones. A gentle squeeze. 

No words are said.

His thumb traces Patroclus’ knuckles, soothing circles. Saccharine gestures that makes his heart wobble. Weak knees. Weak. 

He has never felt so close yet so far. 

* * *

Achilles runs across the field the next day, scarcely remembering to yank off his armor in his rush.  

Thought of figs and boys with brown hair. Weak knees. Weak. And yet he’s faster than ever, his heart running it’s own track race in his head. 

But when he reaches what has cone to be their spot, he stops short.

Where is Patroclus?

 


End file.
